New members and potential members of all fitness levels and abilities are welcome
at all of these events. The full diary of club featured
events is on the club website at:
http://www.barunner.org.uk/Event Diary.shtml (updated 22nd August).

Relay Fun Run - Wednesday 14th September Heston Venue from 18:00 followed by
social with food!

This Wednesday there will be a fun relay event based around the Heston Venue
sports field. This annual event is a celebration for the birthday of
Chairman Brian Forrester. Joe Nolan hopes to lead the warm-up exercise and
then there will be a pairs relay. Teams will be decided on the day. The
relay will include a few laps of the field so just a few km...but if you need to
fit a longer run in then you can always carry on round the field or go for a lap
of the Heston block. Make sure that you are back before 20:00 because we
have food ordered for the social. This is an experiment to see what the
food is like at the Heston Venue with the new organisation and processes.
We've ordered food for twenty meat eaters and five vegetarians and since I've
heard that a few regulars will be absent this means that there will be plenty
for some irregulars! As usual we won't charge for food other than
reserving the right to do so for non-members who haven't told us that they are
coming.

So please tell me to probably expect you. But turn up even if you don't.

The Round the Block event has been running for well over 30 years, but this
year could be the last ever running*. There
were 12 runners on the start line to make their way around the course.

For the 3rd time in 4 years that the event has been held at Waterside, Dave
Dixon easily took the title in his slowest time today (18:20). The battle for
second was a lot closer with Matt Straftful (21:12) finishing 18 seconds ahead
of Toby Houghton (21:30) in third. The ladies race was won by Alex Lyons in a
time of 30:11.

Many thanks to Ian Cunningham for helping out with the start and finishing
duties and to Roderick Hoffman for supplying water and some extra course
signage.

Round The Block 2017?? Will there be another?*

Paul Knechtl - 7th September 2016

*A number of the Waterside team have
uncertain futures but we shall see.

Athletics Club 2016 AGM Minutes

Take a moment to read the BAAC Annual General Meeting minutes for 2016.
These provide a review of our achievements over the past year.

Great North Run Club Results

Hi,

This weekend, Steve and I ran our first ever half marathon, choosing
a small local event, the Great North Run. Steve ran it in 1:53:34 which
I think is superb, and I was very happy with my 2:16:44 time. The
atmosphere was amazing, the weather great for spectators and a fantastic
day overall. We're now nursing sunburn (both), sore muscles (both), some
chaffing (Steve), and lack of proper walking ability (me) due to pain in
left foot. A sports doctor appointment is pending. Having said all that,
the running magazine page is open at events for Oct/Nov.

It is the time of year when some people seem to produce their best times and
there are probably several theories as to why that should be.

Denis Foxley (24:43) ran his best parkrun of the year at Harrow. So
fast that he lapped his wife Joan (36:07) and that hasn't happened before.

Monica Alonso (27:28) was at Reading and came away with a course pb and her
fastest parkrun anywhere in 2016.

Gareth Snook (22:48) ran his first parkrun of the year at Panallta House
Park, Caerphilly. That's the 286th parkrun venue our members have visited
at least once.

Roderick Hoffman (27:48) was at Bexley is southeast London which leaves
only Bromley to run of all the parkruns inside the M25. At the moment.
There seems to be a distinct probability that the London Borough of Lewisham
will soon have a less demanding course on offer than the appropriately named
Hilly Fields where Neil Frediani holds the club record with 27:14. All
credit to Neil - that time was set on New Years Day and was his second run of
the morning. This year's "Christmas Compendium" will probably be appearing
in the next few weeks. With Christmas Day and New Years Day both falling
on a Sunday it may prove possible to run five parkruns in nine days.

Contrasts

Both Monica and Gareth are in good training for this year's World
Airline Road Race in two weekends time. Roderick and others are perhaps not
in such good training for the same event.

John Lennon was in the North East getting ready for the Great North Run
- whereas the Dodsworths were already ready.

Daniela was, unusually for her, doing the same parkrun two weeks in a
row, something Roderick has never done in 222 parkruns. Others, like
Kerstin, have done almost all of their runs at the same park (192 of 196).

Roderick Hoffman

Vitruvian Triathlon - 10 September Result

First the weather report:

[from
the Rutland parkrun news page]

For any of you who are interested to know what I've been doing with my
retirement - and to counteract the image showing me asleep on a sun lounger that
Bridget so kindly posted on Facebook a couple of weeks ago - I thought you might
be interested in hearing about my first Half Ironman that I completed on
Saturday. For those less acquainted with triathlons the Half Ironman is 1900m
swim, 85k bike and a 21k run to finish it off - or to finish you off to be more
precise.

I have been training for this for a while and, just like training for a
Marathon, I spent the last week tapering. Triathlons tend to start very early
indeed so I went up the night before and spent a restless few hours in a
Travelodge bed before rising at 4.15am in order to get to the start and then do
all the preparations you need to do for a triathlon - race numbers, bikes
racked, kit ready for transitions, wetsuit on etc. etc. Certainly makes turning
up for a run seem very straight forward.

Dawn was at 6.29 and at 6.30 we were off. The first part is the swim and I
was in the first wave - which was women and old men (55+). I had assumed that
the fairer sex would be slightly less aggressive on an open water swim - but how
wrong I was as I was kicked; strangled and almost drowned by the swarm of people
around me. I thought my best option was to find a little space on the outside of
the pack and let them get on with it - and I soon got into my swim stride. The
swim is my weakest suit by a long way - so I was pleased when I emerged from the
water relatively unscathed and was able to pull on my socks and shoes for the
bike ride.

As you may remember Saturday was not the best of days with torrential rain
and high winds - so not the best conditions for a 50 mile plus bike ride. The
course consisted of two laps - so at least on the second lap you knew where the
hills were! I was pleased to find that I started overtaking all the faster
female swimmers who had tried to drown me earlier and generally it felt like I
was making good ground. As with the running I seem to be relatively strong on
the hills so felt I was more overtaking than overtaken. With a bike ride this
long you do need to eat a lot and I had a lot of energy bars and shots available
and made sure I ate them at regular intervals. After lap one my split time was
better than I'd hoped so I just needed to keep it going on the second lap - and
avoid punctures and the streams of water flowing down the roads - which I'm
pleased to say that I did. Cycle over in 2hrs 42mins, average speed of 18.7mph
it was back into transition to rack the bike and swap the cycling shoes for
running shoes.

So now just had a half marathon to look forward to! The weather had not
improved so there was as much chance of drowning during the run as there was
during the swim. The course covered the same ground as the Rutland Water park
run which had been cancelled for the day due to the triathlon. They posted the
picture of the course to show their regular runners it had been a good week to
miss.

So starting the run no spring in the step, no thought of go out steady and
pick the pace up later, just a case of head down and keep going. I had the usual
wobbly leg feeling you get when coming off the bike but my first mile split was
okay. The run was an out and back course which you did twice - so overall was
equivalent to doing just over 4 x 5ks. I finished the run in 1hr 44mins, which
I was very happy with, equivalent to 4 5k runs each in 25mins.

The feeling at the finish was a bit like finishing your first marathon,
exhaustion, the thought I am never doing that again, followed by elation.I
had some target times in my head, from an okay time of just under 6 hours, to
"would be good", to "best possible". I beat all these and finished in
5hrs 18mins, so very happy indeed. The race was the English Middle
Distance Championships, and I was 10th in my age group.So I write this
report to show I have not gone soft since leaving BA, but have been training
hard, and only very occasionally resting between training sessions which was
when I was caught on camera, honest.

Richard Ruffell

The Rowley Report

Sunday 11th Sept Julie Barclay/Paul Watt went along to the Henley 10k trial
event, not to race just as a nice relaxed undulating run before WARR. The
weather being perfect along the Henley tow path but then they went across fields
Styles/ditches and back to the finish at Henley bridge. Their times were
not official but very good for a 10k XC event. Self-timed Julie ran 44:45,
Paul 48:02 over a minute faster than his best 10k on the road. Their final
run before WARR It was a very friendly atmosphere event with a B/B after plus I
think what helped Julie decided on going there was a glass of Fizz/Bubbly at the
end